Children's Literature Topics and GA
Let's talk Growing Around and let's talk children's literature in general. Growing Around is, and always was, meant to be a product aimed at children. And there are certain differences between adult entertainment and children's entertainment. I don't mean that "lol, you don't need to try" kind of stuff. Let's talk about the actual, real differences between adult and children's literature. On some level, most people understand that there is a difference. Unless you either really know what you're doing, or you really really ''don't, you can't exactly put in sex, extreme violence/gore, heavy swearing, drugs & alcohol in a work aimed at kids. At the same time, it's rare to find an adult work that has an talking animal as its main character. The main difference, I believe, is the concepts you're allowed to use, or at least how you're able to approach them. I've always meant to aim ''Growing Around at children, in a similar vein to Harry Potter or Sideways Stories from Wayside School or Matilda. In animation, it was meant to be in a similar vein to Dexter's Laboratory or The Powerpuff Girls. There's a reason for this. That's even ignoring subject matter, and that's even ignoring the tone. Let's call it the main benefit of writing for children. Children, by default, want adventure and strange concepts. They don't need an argument to buy them. The best, most popular children's entertainment usually has the goal of taking the child away from the mundane. Think Goosebumps. Think Molly Moon. I bring this up, because it seems that people are expecting me to write Children of the Corn or Lord of the Flies. Which... isn't going to happen. One of the most common criticisms of the product is that they can't buy the concept. So, let's talk about some of the other works of fiction that I'm aspiring to, shall we? Let's start with the Powerpuff Girls, since its fresh in my mind. It's impossible to make sentient life out of ingredients in your spice cabinet. And, in that universe, if it was, why didn't more people besides just Professor Utonium, Dick Hardley, and Mojo Jojo make that life? I mean, if those were the ingredients to make "perfect little girls" then you'd think that biological children might be forced out of the market. And why were the Powerpuff Girls born at the age of five? Also, if the mayor was that incompetent, how did he get elected? You can poke holes in anything. Harry Potter is perhaps the most famous children's story of our generation. And if you wanted to go logically on it. Well, even when the book came out, muggles had satellites and airplanes. Our history has recorded things past the middle ages, where the wizarding world supposedly split from the muggle world. Hogwarts only trains children in a very select group of professions. The children learn no math skills, or reading skills. Economics doesn't make sense in that world. A wand that cost Harry seven galleons cost at least 10 to make. And not to mention the death count that a school like Hogwarts would have had even while not at war. Dumbledore even says to a group of children & teens that anyone who doesn't want to die a most painful death to stay out of the third floor corridor. Let's hope that there aren't any incredibly defiant kids, like Draco (or any portrayed Slytherins really) who would just go there because someone said no. Or let's hope that there isn't an entire group of kids defined by bravery who would see that as a challenge. Speaking of which, sorting doesn't exactly sound like the best idea, realistically. It can lead to intellectual inbreeding. But isn't sorting one of the things that made Harry Potter''special? Yeah, kind of. Now, the books have genuine problems that probably should have been fixed, like the wand thing, but the concept is implausible even with the world that it creates. And in children's literature, that's a selling point. Children tend to like stories about things that can't really logically happen (even moreso than what you'd get out of adult fantasy). Think ''Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Thinking about it logically, Mr. Wonka has at least four lawsuits coming his way. It also has little orange men from a country that doesn't exist. I mean, this is primarily the same thing for all media aimed at children. Think We Bare Bears. "Oh my god, there are three bears in a city! People would be panicking and going crazy and trying to tranquilize them." The Loud House? Try to think about how much it would actually cost in a house with 11 kids, everything from electricity to food to toilet paper. And I could go on and on. Pokemon is a series about a world where 10-year-olds are thrown out into the world to find and capture animals that could easily kill them. They probably have a tough time reading and doing mathematics too. I mean, I could go totally Scientifically Accurate Pokemon on this whole thing. When it comes to fantasy, children and adults have different needs. Just examine the differences between The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings (the books, not the movies). They were written by the same person, yet the tone and what was emphasized as important is completely different when it came to the world. I'm just writing this to be fully honest of what I'm writing about, not that I've ever promised anything else. The Growing Around novel is going to the same audience as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone - a story where parents, even muggleborn parents, allows their kids to completely drop studies in math or reading or science to learn magic and defy death every day. The audience that's reading Molly Moon and the Incredible Book of Hypnotism - which is about a book that allows you to completely control the minds of others, and yet was found in the back of an old dusty library and hasn't affected all of human history. Other offerings to this age group are books like Sideways Stories from Wayside School - which is about a builder who didn't realize that he was making a 30 story building until the whole thing was done, even though he shouldn't have had the parts for it. And it's a school that doesn't have a reputation for... the dumping ground for children too strange/weird from other schools. I'm writing in an age range where a wardrobe can take kids to a fantasy world where they can become kings and queens, live out 80 years, and come home where they turn kids again because no time has moved. If you're going to criticize the book, I'd like you to keep that in mind. This is what Growing Around's peer group is intended to be. I'm not saying that what I'm writing is going to be technically as good as any of these, what I'm trying to do is establish the rules. Does this excuse any other flaws? Absolutely not. Does this mean what I wrote is perfect? No. I know there are flaws already. It's a first draft, that's expected. If I could write a first draft with no flaws (in the span of a month)... I think I'd be rich and famous by now. But a lot of the time, the concept is really what the product is in children's entertainment. If you don't believe me, imagine what Harry Potter would be like if Harry was only going to a prestigious muggle school instead of Hogwarts. It'd be more logical, sure, and it would get rid of all of the known problems of the series, but the magical school is Harry Potter to public perception. Thank you for your time. Category:Miscellaneous